Wilson: Being southpaw easier all the time

I’m working on a holiday. I’m working on MY holiday. This is an outrage.

Well, not really. And that’s a good thing.

Saturday, for the 89 percent of people who don’t celebrate it, was International Left-Handers Day. I am, have been and will always be a left-hander.

Wilson

I never got my left-handed discount anywhere today, and I’m still waiting for my phone call from fellow left-handers Jerry Seinfeld, Scarlett Johansson or Anna Kendrick (I’d be cool if you called me too, Fran Drescher). But maybe the fact that I don’t value the day is a good measure that we southpaws have never had it this good.

I remember the elementary school years, and everybody got these awesome scissors ... except for Kevin, who got the left-handed safety scissors. Right-handers are confused, but we left-handers remember those two butter-knife blades riveted together — and the poor grades we got in art because we couldn’t seem to cut construction paper like our classmates with functional tools.

When I brought it up, my teacher would tell me to feel lucky because left-handers used to be forced to use their right hands. Had I owned the vocabulary, first-grade Kevin would have said, “Why is it satisfactory for a problem to be less awful instead of eliminated?”

In the late elementary school years, I converted to pens with quick-drying ink. If I used a pencil, half of the graphite would end up on my hand due to left-to-right writing. I took the easy way out; my classmate Allyson learned to position her notebook at an awkward angle.

Even when my school days were done, lefthandedness changed many approaches to life.

It’s changed the way I see a table. If you’re eating out with friends, you want a setup that prevents your left hand from bumping into your friend’s right hand. The worst times of my working life were when our office had three left-handers who would eat with three right-handers and we’d have to make a round table work out for us.

It can help you in sports, to a certain degree, because your opponents train themselves against mostly right-handed opponents. Defensive positions vary, but the lefties have a slight offensive advantage because their batters box is a few feet closer to first base. And I’ve never seen a smoother home run swing than from southpaw Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.

Of course, it can hurt as well. I remember an NFL quarterback competition on TV, and 49ers southpaw Steve Young argued without success that he was at a disadvantage because the obstacle course required everybody to make a throw while running to their right.

Perhaps being lefthanded has shapen my views on social issues. I don’t think people choose to be heterosexual or homosexual any more than I chose to be left-handed.

But it’s getting better for southpaws all the time. Some business learned it was cheaper to make scissors everybody could use rather than create two products and keep them both stocked with retailers everywhere. And while there are left-handed mice and keyboards, it’s not overwhelming — and the move towards touchscreens is even better because a phone doesn’t care what hand you use.

Come next Aug. 13, I’ll probably ignore my holiday. Come to think of it, I’ll also ignore Aug. 12, which is National Middle Child Day. I understand they’re used to that kind of thing.

Kevin Wilson is a columnist for Clovis Media Inc. He can be contacted at 575-763-3431, ext. 320, or by email:

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